My visiting niece expresses she wants to go to one of her favorite playgrounds, so we hop in the car and I take a new route so she won’t recognize the place since we’re approaching it differently. I want to see how long it takes before she catches on.
Turns out, I was the one that got the surprise.
I park the car, and we get out and start walking along a black path towards the playground.
“How looooooong to do have to walk?” she asks.
At my height, I can see it. “About a minute.”
“What if it’s two minutes?” she asks.
“What if it’s an hour?” I retort.
“What if it’s two hours?” she counters.
“What if it’s one hundred hours?” I escalate.
“What if it’s two hundred hours?” she throws back.
We’re almost to the playground, so I figure, just for fun I’ll give her a word problem that will bug her all week.
“So, how many days is 200 hours?”
She pauses, looks up at me. “Good question.” She puts her finger on her chin, and immediately answers “Eight days and eight hours?”
I do a double take. “Uh, that sounds about right.”
And at that point she sees the playground, screams “Come on!” and breaks into a full run.
I take a more leisurely pace to cover my thought process. “Let’s see 24 into 20, nope gotta do the whole thing, 24 into 200, wait, 10 is too much, 9? That still feels high. She said 8, let’s go with that, 8 times 24, ok, ok, 8 times 4, that’s 32, okay, carry the 3, 8 times what was it, yes, 2, ok, 14, no 16, dumb Walt, dumb, ok, 16 plus, what was it before, 24, no, 32, wait, carry the 3, 16 plus 3, that’s 19, what was in the last one’s column, 32, ok, 2, alright 192, then I need to what, subtract that from…”
At this point I’m concerned because this little girl just did lightning math in her head without preparation, and I don’t know if she’s going to be able to understand the concept of explaining the thought process that happens in one’s own head. Figuring out how she did this is going to bug me all week.